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12 October 2018 | AutoData FROM THE TOP » DAN IOSCHPE, SINDIPEÇAS aligned with the rest of the world, com- plyingwith theWTO rules, as in the case of Rota 2030, it will help the Brazilian trade balance in medium and long term. Did the auto parts sector come out of the crisis stronger or weaker? That view where the industry wouldn’t stand and succumb was not proved. Just like the risk imagined, during the resumption, that there would be no delivery capacity, it didn’t prove itself true as well. What happened: resilience. The sector passed, suffered, fought, cut costs, reduced spent, there were en- trepreneurs selling their goods, there were multinational companies disposing assets. We left with different characte- ristics and a dried structure cost to face the new scale level. Is it time to invest again already? We invested even during the crisis. Of course there were differences: less in- vestment in capacity and more in pro- ductivity, to face the crisis. From 2019 on, even if we achieve the growth levels we are predicting, no more investments in capacity will be necessary unless there is a strong market acceleration. On the other hand, 4.0 manufacturing brings a natural and very good investment becau- se it increases productivity and qualifica- tion. Thiswill be the greatest investments’ characteristics in the coming years. ppen in an economic instability scenario because of the election and an increase in customer insecurity. The people get very preoccupied about the market, the banks, but it is the customer who makes the decision. If I’m scared I won’t do anything, but if I’m confident I make an investment, a small business, I travel, I buy a car. What canbe expected for the autoparts? We grew in a similar way in revenue and physical production in 2017, about 24%. This year, the increase will be slightly higher in production, mainly because of the aftermarket. We should close at an increase of 14%. We are also forecas- ting an 18% growth in the trade balance deficit, which worries us but it is not that serious. Howcan this balance deficit stop grow­ ing? One side of this deficit is not so bad, it is related to the necessity for models renovation and more brands in the ma- rket. Brazil is not a point of new projects generation, of newvehicles. If more de- velopments were made here we would have more components available. But it takes months, even years for the start of production, so the import of many vehicles for the scale needed to produce here in Brazil takes place. It is not blo- cking the importation, nor hoping that we have fewer new cars, let alone reducing the vehicles’ life cycle, that we will solve this question. Doesn’t Rota 2030 give this direction? Yes it does because Rota 2030 encoura- ges R&D. It’s something done all over the world to reach more local content and even export more. Of course we have questions of competitiveness that are horizontal and that will take a long time to be resolved. They are not issues that are resolved quickly, but having R&D “We suppose a 5% growth in production with relation to 2018. I would not call it as optimism: we are far below what we used to achieve.”